An American crime thriller directed by Rob Cohen, with Tyler Perry in the title role, portraying the police detective/psychologist character featured in many novels by James Patterson. The film is based on Patterson’s novel called “Cross.” The police are pitted against a serial killer, Michael “The Butcher” Sullivan, portrayed by Matthew Fox.

Ben Affleck’s winning streak as director continues with a story that would strike one as preposterous if it were not based on fact: a secret bond between the CIA and Hollywood that results in the extraction of six Americans hiding in Tehran during the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis. With a prologue explaining how the Ayatollah replaced a westernized Shah, the film recreates the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran by Islamist students and militants. Fifty-two Americans were kept hostage for 444 days. Six escape and go into hiding in the Canadian ambassador’s home, where they are bound to be detected. This is their story. Affleck’s film becomes a white-knuckle adventure, a real movie about a proposed fake movie that generates nearly non-stop suspense. Working with Hollywood friends, including makeup artist John Chambers (played by John Goodman), CIA extractor Tony Mendez (a bearded Affleck) convinces the six to pretend to be a Canadian film crew making a “Star Wars” rip-off in the Iranian desert. Performances are first-rate across the board.

Rated R for language and some violent images — Movies 16.

Cloud Atlas

Kerns Rating: Four and a half stars

A second viewing confirms that this is an experimental, engaging and entertaining (if occasionally goofy) struggle for power by good and evil throughout the past, present and future. Yet it is an experience equally charming and challenging. Ten minutes shy of three hours in length, the film flips and gyrates back and forth within six interlocking stories set in the 1849 South Pacific, 1936 Cambridge, 1973 San Francisco, present day England, 2144 Neo-Seoul (perhaps the anchoring story) and a post-apocalyptic 2346. Co-directed by “Matrix” filmmakers Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, the movie finds every co-starring actor asked to play multiple roles, sometimes unrecognizable as each shifts in age, race and, yes, gender.

Rated R for violence, language, sexuality/nudity and some drug use — Movies 16.

Flight

Kerns Rating: Three and one-half stars

An often entertaining, although rarely gripping, film from a gifted director who lures a terrific ensemble performance from each soul on board. Yet the story wants to be all things for all moviegoers: melodrama, comedy, action, trial drama, with even some romance — although linking alcoholic pilot Denzel Washington with a heroin addict played by Kelly Reilly lacks truth. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the movie opens with an airline disaster, although Washington, an ex-Navy pilot with cool instincts, saves almost 100 lives with unorthodox thinking. Nevertheless, a blood test will not allow him to hide an alcohol addiction that would be frightening even without a cocaine chaser. To survive, however, would mean tossing a heroic lover/coworker under the bus.

Kevin James stars as a devoted high school biology teacher who subjects himself to a series of beatings as a Mixed Martial Arts fighter in an effort to raise the $48,000 needed to save the school’s music program.

No five-star hotel here, not when comic potential dries up so soon. With no frightening moments, the picture is aimed at the very young and those who appreciate 3-D silliness. There is one clever sequence with dining room tables used like magic carpets, but director Genndy Tartakovsky cannot capitalize, not even with veteran comics providing voices. At the least, this should have been funnier.

Rated PG for some rude humor, action and scary images — Movies 16.

Life of Pi (in 3-D and 2-D)

Adapted from Yan Martel’s prize-winning book and directed by Ang Lee, said to accomplish the sort of 3-D effects not seen since James Cameron’s “Avatar.” The action centers on Piscine Molitor Patel, played by Suraj Sharma, and known as Pi. He is a zookeeper’s son forced by political changes to travel by ship from India to Canada. But tragedy finds him adrift in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. The rest of the story chronicles his voyage of more than 200 days.

Just cancel the Academy Awards right now and give Daniel Day-Lewis his Oscar. He captures not only the wisdom and the courage, but compassion and weariness of a man who devotes his life to asking his fellow man to do the right thing. Yes, this is a talky, political film, but not one from which anyone should bolt. We see the effects of battle, rather than the Civil War version of “Saving Private Ryan.” We share the sickness of Lincoln’s son (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he views the results of post-battle amputations, feeling self-worth slip away because of his father’s protective influence. Tommy Lee Jones deserves a nomination, too, as a Republican who knows how the Congressional games are played. Sally Field, as Mary Todd Lincoln, has done her research and delivers her very best performance. One loses sight of actress, and sees only character. This is Steven Spielberg’s subtle masterpiece — not at the level of “Schindler’s List,” but it remains a must-see.

Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language — Tinseltown 17 and Movies 16.

Looper

Kerns Rating: Four and one-half stars

Intelligent and involving science-fiction on screen is rare; even moreso are intelligent, involving time travel stories. “Looper,” in the hands of writer-director Rian Johnson, is both. Suspense builds during the film’s latter half. Joseph-Gordon Levitt portrays a young, professional mob assassin, or looper, in 2044. Time travel is invented 30 years in the future and, when the mob wants someone rubbed out, they send him back to a 2044 looper. Things go bad when someone in 2074 begins taking over the mobs and closing the loops, sending the loopers future versions of themselves to kill. But Levitt’s future self, played by Bruce Willis, escapes — and even worse, his plan to change the future will test his soul. Emily Blunt is equally good as a farm wife with a past and a child.

Charlie, a sensitive teenager and high school freshman played by Logan Lerman, learns to navigate highs and lows of adolescence only after becoming friends with a pair of high school seniors: Emma Watson as Sam, and Ezra Miller as Patrick.

Arriving at her new college, Beca (played by Anna Kendrick) finds herself ill fitted for any clique — but somehow is muscled into one that she never would have chosen on her own: alongside girls who sound good when they sing together.

The United States is invaded by a foreign power. American citizens find themselves taken prisoner and their cities occupied. Determined to fight back, a group of high school students hide out in the surrounding woods and reorganize into a guerilla fighting force, determined to kill the invading forces and liberate their home towns. The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson and Connor Cruise (Tom’s son). It is a remake of John Milius’ 1984 action film starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, among others.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense war violence and action, and for language — Tinseltown 17, Premiere Cinemas and the Stars and Stripes Drive-In.

Rise of the Guardians

An epic and magical adventure that introduces Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman and Jack Frost as legendary characters with previously unknown extraordinary abilities. When an evil spirit known as Pitch lays down the gauntlet to take over the world, the Guardians must join forces to protect the hopes, beliefs and imaginations of children everywhere.

The film opens on Super 8 footage of a family of four standing under a tree with bags over their heads and nooses around their necks. Months later, a true-crime novelist (played by Ethan Hawke) moves into the same house as the murdered family with his wife (Juliet Rylance) and two children. He uses the murders as the basis for his new book. The film premiered at SXSW and received positive reviews. Variety called it “the sort of tale that would paralyze kids’ psyches.”

Rated R for disturbing violent images and some terror — Movies 16.

Skyfall

Kerns Rating: Five stars

Everything falls into place as director Sam Mendes is not content to deliver an exciting mystery with a huge payoff. He takes an extra step and provides an anchor that allows the Bond series to continue in healthy fashion. Still, there are changes, arriving in either bloody or heartbreaking fashion. Daniel Craig continues to impress as Agent 007, providing a Bond whose loyalty sets him apart and, in fact, gives him the drive to continue when we are certain he cannot. The story also allows fans to explore Bond’s past. In the process, though, Hooper has fun exploring the entire franchise’s past, bringing back memories and keepsakes that have kept Bond, for lack of a better word, cool. “Skyfall” may not be remembered for its Bond girls, per se, although Craig is not kept lonely. Javier Bardem introduces another great Bond villain, even if he’s not trying to take over the world.

Liam Neeson returns as Bryan Mills, that retired CIA agent with a particular set of skills who, in the prior “Taken,” saved daughter Kim from Albanian kidnappers intent on selling her as a sex slave. The father (played by Rade Sherbedgia) of one of the murdered kidnappers swears revenge, then takes Bryan and his wife (Famke Janssen) hostage during a family vacation in Istanbul. The beautiful Janssen’s character is too often drugged, threatened or forced to hang upside down with a bag on her head. Following a by-the-numbers script, Neeson again kills almost every bad guy, leaving only enough alive to leave a door open for yet another sequel.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some sensuality — Tinseltown 17 and Movies 16.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2

Kerns Rating: Three and one-half stars

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg and director Bill Condon accomplish the impossible. The ending includes a story flip that at once embraces, and yet diverts from, the climax offered within Stephanie Meyer’s final “Twilight” book. As a result, already converted “Twilight” fans will depart still loving the series. However, those who have disliked the series must, if they are honest, admit they were not bored. Efforts build to a well-directed, exciting, war between vampires — with Native American werewolves thrown into the mix.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sensuality and partial nudity — Tinseltown 17, Premiere Cinemas and the Stars and Stripes Drive-In.

Wreck-It Ralph (3-D and 2-D)

Kerns Rating: Three stars

The first half is a lot of fun. We meet game character Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly), who spends each day wrecking things within his video game and repeatedly getting tossed off a tall building by star Fix-It Felix Jr. Ralph is treated shabbily by other characters even after the arcade closes. He attends Bad Guy Anon meetings, but the message cannot take hold. He still wants to be a good guy and, after hours, breaks the rules by leaving his own game and leaping into an exciting sci-fi war game, fighting killer cyber-bugs. His goal was to win a medal. But he instead winds up asking, “When did video games get to be so violent?” After working on multiple delicious levels, the film unfortunately strands Ralph in a sticky-sweet cart-racing game, where he makes friends with a young glitch/girl named Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). Suddenly, laughter is found within “doody” jokes. Like Pixar’s “Brave,” Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” morphs into a movie whose sense of humor is aimed at pre-teens. Yes, it is extremely colorful, imaginative and boasts memorable animation. Early potential is wrecked by story inconsistency.